Britain’s biggest mobile operator, Everything Everywhere, is in advanced talks
to sell a chunk of airwaves to the country’s smallest operator, Three.

It is not known how much Three would pay for the valuable 1800 MhZ spectrum. It has previously been valued at around £450m, but Everything Everywhere has claimed in the past that this figure is too high.

The mobile giant was formed in 2010 from the merger of Orange and T-Mobile, a deal which was only allowed to go ahead on the condition that it sold part of its top-tier spectrum before the end of this year.

The 1800 MHz spectrum up for sale is often regarded as the best sort for 4G services, which have yet to launch in Britain but will allow much speedier access to the internet over mobile phones.

Clinching the deal would give Three the raw materials it needs to service its rapidly-growing market share, presenting a threat to the larger mobile companies who also include Vodafone and O2.

It also stands to have a major impact on the course of the government’s long-awaited 4G spectrum auction, which is expected to get underway at the end of this year.

The rules, laid out by Ofcom, mean that Three, or another “fourth player”, will receive fewer minimum guarantees if it has already bought Everything Everywhere’s spectrum than if it enters the auction with no more spectrum than it has already had for the past year.

The price of the dea for Everything Everywhere’s spectrum is also likely to be seen as an indicator for the sorts of amounts that the Government can expect to receive from the mobile operators in the 4G spectrum auction.

Seperately, Ofcom is expected to say tomorrow whether it will relax the rules on another chunk of Everything Everywhere’s airwaves, allowing it to plough ahead and launch 4G services in the UK this year.